


It Was Only A Smile But My Heart It Went Wild

by Blueskyblack



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Canon Compliant, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 07:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10737486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueskyblack/pseuds/Blueskyblack
Summary: Ughh, just grow some balls, my subconscious will tell me. But I, and therefore she as well, know that it just isn't that simple. But still, I need to figure out a way to stop this vicious cycle of sleepless nights and happy smiles. Of trying to hook up with different, with beautiful, with innocent girls only to shatter their hopes and reject them eventually. Of putting up this front of knowing what I'm doing while actually being scared as hell whenever I'm alone with one of these girls who are so clearly enamoured by me and my flirtatious ways and quick wit. Of always being scared shitless that one of them might actually see behind the surface and figure out what's going on. Oh, do I want to scream it in their faces when they whisper in my ears or drop to their knees.





	It Was Only A Smile But My Heart It Went Wild

**Author's Note:**

> So, I don't really know where this came from.  
> I had been inspired by the song (Wasn't Expecting That - Jamie Lawson) a while back, then rediscovered it yesterday and couldn't stop writing until this was finished.  
> It's probably me processing S3 while peparing myself for the weeks (and the hurt) to come ;)  
> I mean that clip today?! Finally something!
> 
> Well, I'm just gonna throw this out there then. Enjoy and let me know if you liked it (or not) :)

 

 

Feeling underwater. That's what it feels like most days. Well, for me at least. With all the pretending I have forced myself to do since ... way too long. Way too long for it to leave behind some friction of sanity. Not being able to hold your breath, but too exhausted to actually swim up to the surface to take the _dearly_ -needed breath of fresh air. That's what it feels like, to be more precise. And I can't even remember when it started to be like that for me? _Really?_ No wonder I feel like going **insane**. This is all too much and I can't even bring myself to think about the reasons behind it all.

Ok, thinking I do a lot. My head might actually burst one day from all the so-called heavy thinking, from all the depressing thoughts and occasionally uplifting sensations when opening up one of the incognito-taps on my laptop that will allow me to reign in the truth that is in the end undeniably me. I have seen so many people talk about being their true selves, but how the heck do they actually own up to get to that point?

 _Ughh, just grow some balls_ , my subconscious will tell me. But I, and therefore she as well, know that it just isn't that _simple_. I know I am afraid of it all, of the scope of it all, of what my family will say and how my friends and the whole school will react to the news. Because it will obviously be news to them with all the stellar acts of pretending I have done especially in the last weeks. But then I also catch myself bathing in the daydreams where all is well and I am out and proud, _do people still say that_?

I mean, honestly, what could really happen to me? Lose some friends, never speak to my relatives again, possibly get beaten up by some bullies? Okay, scratch that last one. It is 2017 after all, and I am not moving in the wrong circles. My immediate environment would probably not even care after the first sensation of it would be surpassed by some kid who has thrown up at some party or has been cheated on by their girl- or boyfriend.

You get the gist, sometimes I just try to think good thoughts, especially when the all-overshadowing feeling of drowning gets too much to endure. Sometimes that still happens, most of the time it doesn't. I've got too much practice, I have to admit. Really sad thing to say... or think for that matter. I should probably consider talking to a professional, someone who'd be able to sort out this mess that's me. Internal homophobia and anxiety attacks included.

But then again, I guess that's on me anyway. I need to figure out a way to stop this vicious cycle of sleepless nights, happy smiles on the outside but feeling incomplete on the inside. Of trying to hook up with different, with beautiful, with innocent girls only to shatter their hopes and reject them eventually. Of putting up this front of knowing what I'm doing while actually being scared as hell whenever I'm alone with one of these girls who are so clearly enamoured by me and my flirtatious ways and quick wit. Of always being scared shitless that one of them might actually see behind the surface and figure out what's going on.

Oh, do I want to scream it in their faces when they whisper in my ears or drop to their knees.

 

⁕⁕⁕⁕

 

Emma, for example. I just felt this sudden burst of needing to prove myself in front of the guys again. And I knew it would work. So now we're here - again.

This pretty, way too naive girl thinks she's landed herself a boyfriend and I can't even blame her. I got us in this mess, I _needed_ this. But I don't really know what I need, I know it is not this. It's not Emma. It's not any of them. I only ever need ... well who? What? I thought I needed Jonas for a minute or two. That, however, was also entirely concocted in my own head. I guess I was just jealous, fearing Eva would swallow him whole and leave me Jonas-less when I so desperately needed a friend.

He was there for all of it, everything that got me to this point. And I haven't even been able to tell him. I feel like a fraud. In more ways than one, when it comes to my friendship with Jonas. I think I never _needed_ needed him, I thought I did, but it was more puppy love, never this burning desire some people talk about. This all-consuming craving of someone's touch or just their voice.

I wanted to spend all my time with Jonas, yes, but I never wanted to _be_ with him. Not in that way. I might have fooled myself for a time, might have fucked up relationships because of it. But it's in the past now and I know better. I think I still have to find that someone who makes me feel all the things all these cheesy romance films are about. I long for it, that's for sure. I'm a seventeen-year-old teenager, I long for someone to touch me, literally, of course, but also figuratively.

I need to open up to someone and unpack my heart and soul from all these little boxes I locked them up in to protect myself from myself. From all these feelings. From the real _me_.

I don't want to do this any longer, it's exhausting. But how do I stop? How do I break this habit? How can I actually be _me_?

 

 

_It was only a smile but my heart it went wild  
and I wasn't expecting that_

 

I don't want myself to think like that, yet. But I might have figured out a way, well, it could be a way. It could be everything. **He** could be everything, I think. I know. Even though I don't know him or anything about him for that matter. I think I know.

We've stolen glances, yes, and I know he has, too. We've smoked together and I learned his name. Emma came to bite me back in the ass, well, my actions did at least. I've never wanted for anyone to disappear more in my life than when she insisted on being a group of three. I wanted to scream in her face then again. I didn't. And I lost precious time alone with him.

 

⁕⁕⁕⁕

 

Even. I'm at his house right now. Don't really know how that came to be. But I know I'd stay here indefinitely if he's only gonna continue to smile like that. I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful smile than his. It lights up the whole room. It unpacks some boxes inside of me, I can hear the rummaging, I can feel it deep within me. My heart is beating uncontrollably, it goes wild in there when he catches me looking at him. It already feels lighter, some of the locks broken already. And it's the most terrifying thing to ever happen to me.

Mum going off the rails, Dad leaving, sleeping in a basement of someone that's picked you up in a gay bar, drunk as fuck, nothing really comes close to what I'm feeling right now. How scared I am. How exhilarating it is at the same time. I feel alive for the first time in months, I feel care-free.

I know I've clearly **never** felt anything remotely like this. _Is this falling in love_? I can't wait to feel more and more and more. And I lose track of time.

 

When the door bell rings and bursts this little, wonderful bubble we've been in, the scary feelings come back, nearly tipping over the edge. Nearly drowning me again.

But he asks me to stay and I feel the waves crashing more slowly, more peacefully against the shore that's my brain and body. And then I meet Sonja and everything's suddenly flooded and I am drowning again, unable to stop myself from being taken off into the wide, wide sea.

 

  
_Just a delicate kiss, anyone could've missed_  
_I wasn't expecting that_

 

I don't really know how I excused myself from that Sonja-situation. I was busy staying alive, catching at least some oxygen. Much to my surprise, it didn't end there. This thing with him and me, I mean. Now we're in this swimming pool inside somebody's house and I'm quite sure we're breaking and entering. I don't care though. He makes me not care.

 

⁕⁕⁕⁕ 

 

He just kissed me. I definitely did not imagine it, at least not this time around. I might have dreamt of his lips touching mine before, day-dreams or wet dreams, doesn't really matter 'cause it's been all I've been thinking about, to be honest. Constantly. Since he was sat across from me on that windowsill, to be more precise.

I've also felt a little bit bad about it. He has a girlfriend, after all. And even if it's just imagining us being together in that way, I sometimes can't shake the feeling of inappropriate behaviour on my side ... but speaking of inappropriate behaviour: He just kissed me.

He made it out to be competitive, a way of making me lose my focus. Well, I most definitely lost something in that moment. Probably my mind. Because, you see, after declaring I wouldn't except losing like that, we got under water again and after that I wasn't even thinking anymore. Because after that I kissed him.

I kissed Even. We both knew then, I guess. There was no way of not knowing for me, at least.

Funny enough we were under water. But instead of fearing the waves, of the body of water choking the life out of me, I felt at peace. All the white noise vanished for a while. There was just us, us kissing. We kissed. Even, he kissed me.

 

  
_Did I misread the sign? Your hand slipped into mine_  
_I wasn't expecting that_

 

With every passing minute I feel myself unpacking some more boxes, with every passing second he lies there in my arms, I believe more and more in stopping. In breaking my habits, in the possibility of being me again or possibly for the first time.

I even tell him about my mum, open up about the most heart-breaking situation of my life. Tell him while he's holding my hands, while he's kissing me in the boys' locker room.

 

 ⁕⁕⁕⁕

 

But then he does the heart-breaking. Breaks mine, if you must know.

I let myself be me for a while, let him break down some of the walls, unpack some of the boxes surrounding my until-then-hidden heart. I was sure, I really was, he felt the same. I was there with him, I know he felt it, too. He must have some heart-shaped boxes of his own though, because he crushes mine and hands them back to me.

In the form of a stupid text message. And then again, more clearly, when he's kissing his ex-or-not-so-ex-girlfriend at a party while I'm watching.

The water comes back to take me with it, then. I mean, okay, he probably didn't know I was there looking for him in the crowd, watching it happen. It doesn't excuse anything though, and it doesn't help me when I'm longing for air while my lungs are fighting for dear life.

How did I misread all of it, how could I have been so profoundly wrong? I should've stopped it while I was still able to. But was I ever, really? After locking eyes with him, stealing looks, exchanging longing glares? It's my bad, I guess. I just wasn't expecting anything like Even to ever happen to me.

 

  
_You spent the night in my bed, you woke up and you said_  
_"Well, I wasn't expecting that"_

 

I really had been sure I'd wake up alone again, so when I can't feel his warmth against me, his long limps entangled with mine, his naked chest heaving in one rhythm with mine, I shouldn't be as disappointed. Still, a small part of me has seemingly hoped for a different outcome. Has hoped for two naked bodies flushed together as one. Has ultimately hoped for a change of behaviour in Even after this night that has shifted my life on its axis once again, has confirmed so much of the real me.

So much of what I'd buried deep within me before I'd met him and then again after he'd used Sonja to trample on my feelings for him. Because this is clear as day, there are feelings, so many of them, inside me, for him. And after him showing up at my doorstep and the deliriousness which followed, he can't really have left me cold and alone in this bed, can he?

It seems almost too cruel to think about.

Except, he hasn't. He's there. Here, in my kitchen. Cooking breakfast, dancing to questionable pop-songs on the radio, kissing me. Making me fall in love with him some more. Making me fall.

And as cheesy as it might sound to you, I just hope he'll actually be there to catch me in the end. Until that day comes, I'll fight against the waves, I'll savour every last bit of Even he's willing to give to me.

 

  
_I thought love wasn't meant to last,_  
_I thought you were just passing through_  
_If I ever get the nerve to ask_  
_What did I get right to deserve somebody like you?_

 

After this one week of pure bliss, of being able to breathe freely for days at a time, after the sleeping in the same bed every night, after the sex and the getting used to having someone on your side, someone by your side for whatever may come, the crash follows.

I fall, deep, and Even's not there to catch me, instead he's literally running away from me. He's somehow responsible for all of this. Or rather his bipolar disorder is. Or I am. At least that's what Sonja wants me to believe. I don't know anything anymore if I'm honest.

All these emotions come crashing down at me. Fear and love, hurt and concern, anger and nostalgia, heart-break and longing. I'm scared shitless and I crave his body next to mine, holding me tight, breathing into my ear that everything will be okay in the end. That this won't be the end. _How can it be the end of us?_

And I might need a little help from my friends and some days of wallowing in self-pity and crying a fair amount but eventually I reach out to him. And eventually he reaches back. And he tells me everything I ever wanted to hear and more, again in a stupid text message. Even does. And I quite literally leave everything behind and find him.

 

  
_I wasn't expecting that_  
_It was only a word, it was almost misheard_  
_'Cause I wasn't expecting that_  
_But it came without fear, a month turned into a year_  
_And I wasn't expecting that_

 

 _Du er ikke alene_. Four words whispered on school grounds long after the sun has set. Barely any louder than the steady downfall of raindrops, drenching us from the outside while the water in my lungs draws back inch by inch. I'm not drowning anymore, instead he is. In his own thoughts.

All this time, I've never thought of the possibility that the waves might come for him as well, and come all the worse.

His confidence, his boldness, his ever-present smile that lights up his whole face. That is the Even I've come to know but it's not all of him. There's also hurt and sadness and dark thoughts. There's self-consciousness and pushing people away. There's fearing what the next day, the next hour might hold. All of this is Even. My Even. I know this now.

I fucked up, as did he. We both did. But we're here now. And we're not going anywhere. We're here to stay. I'm sure of this now, as is Even. After all, life is now.

 

  
_I thought love wasn't meant to last,_  
_I thought you were just passing through_  
_If I ever get the nerve to ask_  
_What did I get right to deserve somebody like you?_  
_I wasn't expecting that_  
  
_Isn't it strange how a life can be changed_  
_in the flicker of the sweetest smile_  
_We were married in spring_  
_You know I wouldn't change a thing_  
_Without an innocent kiss, what a life I'd have missed,_

 

My friends tell me I'm becoming this married housewife with the moving in and the cooking and everything. Well, Magnus does. And Jonas tells him off afterwards for doing his part at upholding gender stereotypes and simply being his sometimes ignorant but never ill-intentioned self. I can't bring myself to be too bothered by it though.

After all, we're still doing the minute for minute-thing, Even and I, but from now on, after months of being us, of finally being together, we're doing it while actually living together. Living in and paying for the same flat.

As in I've moved out of the flat share and Even's moved out of his parents house and **we've** moved into a lovely shithole of a flat. A place that we can now call ours. Life's now and life's great.

 

  
_If you'd not took a chance on a little romance_  
_When I wasn't expecting that_  
_Time doesn't take long, three kids up and gone_  
_And I wasn't expecting that_  
_And when the nurses they came, said its come back again_  
_I wasn't expecting that_  
_Then you closed your eyes, you took my heart by surprise_  
_And I wasn't expecting that!_

 

Don't get me wrong, there's so much more I need to learn, so much more the both of us have to learn. And we fight and we yell and we might even shed a tear, but we also love, _so much_ , and hold and have earth-shattering make-up sex. Then there's Even not leaving our bed for days at a time and me trying to ease his burdens in whichever way possible. And there's me and my anxiety and my family issues and Even soothing my pain.

There's also the future and what it might hold. Even graduating, possibly going to uni while I'm still stuck at school. We might lose ourselves, but we might make it. I hope we do. Eva once asked me if he's the man of my life. I whole-heartedly hope he is. I desperately want him to be.

But who knows, really. Life is now and life is unpredictable in every way.

All I know is, I'm not feeling underwater anymore. I'm not drowning, instead I'm breathing fresh air. The waves may come crashing once in a while but most of the time Even keeps them at bay. He shelters me from the raging sea, as I shall do for him, for as long as he lets me.

And _really_ , who could've expected that?

 


End file.
